GOP Should Appreciate Its Moderates

Is Lincoln Chafee's fight for political survival a Republican version of the Joe Lieberman story? No, though there are parallels. Both senators angered their parties' bases, thus unleashing serious primary challenges. Lieberman lost the Connecticut Democratic primary to businessman Ned Lamont, and is now running as an independent. Chafee faces the music on Sept. 12, when Rhode Island primary voters choose him or Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey as their Republican candidate.

The great difference between Chafee-Laffey and Lieberman-Lamont is the stakes for the national parties. They're relatively low in the Lieberman-Lamont race, where the victor will be either a Democrat or an independent who says he's one. But the Chafee-Laffey primary will greatly influence whether Rhode Island replaces its Republican incumbent with a Democrat. Laffey would be unlikely to win the general election, so a Chafee primary loss would raise the odds that Democrats regain the majority in the Senate.

The 2006 election could be a traumatic awakening for Republicans. The (mostly Northern) moderates that Republican leaders ignore at best and abuse at worst are paying the price for their party's radical politics. The Sunbelt "conservatives" who run Washington should understand that if the Yankee Republicans go down, they go down with them.

Control of the House is even more up for grabs, in part because three Republicans from Connecticut -- Chris Shays, Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons -- face very unhappy electorates. As such, Connecticut has become a top battleground state.

Republican leaders never fully appreciated their moderates, whom the hotheads call RINOs (Republicans in Name Only). New England, for example, may be the bluest region in America, but it sends five Republicans to the U.S. Senate. Chafee has kept a seat warm for Republicans in the state that gives President Bush his lowest approval rating.

As conservative activist Grover Norquist once said about Chafee, "A Republican from Rhode Island is a gift from the gods, and is not to be looked at askance."

But some movement conservatives don't get it -- or they don't care, they dislike Chafee so much. Chafee voted against the war in Iraq and against Samuel Alito's Supreme Court nomination. He opposed many of the Bush tax cuts. And he refused in 2004 to support President Bush's re-election. In February, The National Review called on Republicans to dump Chafee in the primary, even if that meant losing his Senate seat to a Democrat.

Most New England Republicans can't get elected without major support from independents and moderate Democrats. These voters have long regarded their Republicans as nice guys with nice politics -- socially liberal and fiscally conservative. But the Republican leadership is neither, leading many swing voters to wonder: What's the point of a moderate Republican who enables the crazies?

Chafee has managed to irritate both the Republican base (small in Rhode Island but obviously important in the GOP primary) and his liberal supporters. Asked 10 times a day why he doesn't switch parties, Chafee always responds that he was born a Republican -- an answer that seems less satisfactory as time goes on. If he became a Democrat or an independent (as did Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords), voters would at least know what ballpark they're playing in.

The National Review said that defeating Chafee "would send a helpful message to the kind of Republican who thinks Chafee's 'independence' is something to admire and emulate." It named Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe as prime recipients.

The message, however, could boomerang back to the senders in the form of a giant pink slip, return address Washington. Enforcers on the right may hate Chafee, but Republicans like him are the reason they're in power.